


I'm Never What I Like, I'm Double Sided

by infraredphaeton



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Protective Siblings, Swearing, communication is important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2749349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infraredphaeton/pseuds/infraredphaeton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent South Dakota confronts her brother, and he explains a few things while she tries to cave his head in. They come to an understanding, and South meets her other brother. AU fix-it for the end of PFL, at least for the Dakotas.<br/>Featuring: Real communication skills! The ability to admit you're wrong! Sharing!</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Never What I Like, I'm Double Sided

**Author's Note:**

> I am constantly infuriated by the way people write siblings. Particularly the Dakota siblings. I like South, and feel like she should have gotten to take a third option at the end of Project Freelancer. Because goddamn, the Freelancers need to learn to use their words. Title from Semi-Automatic by Twenty One Pilots.

“You don't understand!” North says, pointing two sniper rifles at her- as if he could fire. As if he could fire and not be crippled by the recoil dislocating his elbows. The first time had made his arms shake, and really, he gives South shit about not setting her trackers, but he just won't stop locking his elbows. Honestly, she thinks, under the betrayal and the anger, this is why her brother is long range support, not close quarters combat. What an idiot. It's a good thing he has South to look after him- and the betrayal surges back because her idiot brother doesn't, in fact, have South. He has two sniper rifles and Agent Texas.

“What don't I understand?” South spits, raising your fists. She's not armed to fight someone she doesn't want to kill, and as annoying and misguided as her brother is, South doesn't want to kill him.

  
Not properly, anyway.

  
“They're-” he pauses for a second, and she lowers her stance slightly. North is string-bean tall, has been ever since they were sixteen and he finally hit his growth spurt, so tackling him low, at the hips, will knock him down, she's eighty, maybe eighty five percent sure. But then he calls her by name, and South pauses, because the name he uses isn't South, and it's been a long time since he called her anything but that. “They want us to fight each other, South.”

  
“No, they want us- us being the people who aren't fucking traitors- to fight the people who can't deal with losing their A.I.s. What, North, can't deal with not being special anymore?” She sneers, and it feels good. It feels good seeing him take a half step back because South has wanted to say this for almost a fucking year, at this point. “Afraid you won't be able to keep up without a little advantage?”

  
“South-”

  
“You should be!” South roars, and launches herself forwards, sacking him at the waist and pushing him down, “You know I'm a better agent!”

  
“I do!” North shouts, falling back in a counter that she taught him. He's using her own teaching against her and it makes South's blood boil even as she moves into her next stance.

 

“I do, South, you're a better fighter than me, and we all know that-”

  
“Your fancy fucking computer program says we don't,” she says through gritted teeth, bringing up a leg in a flutter of one-two-three kicks from the knee, accurate and nasty as they snap into the microfibre under suit, avoiding the armour plating.

  
“Theta isn't just a computer program,” North says hotly, bringing up his arms to block her next spinning kick. She's got more strength than he expects- he may be tall, but she is motivated. While North spent his evenings drinking warm milk and talking to York, South has been training. South is going to take her leaderboard status and make the director choke on it as she rams it down his smug Southern throat- and he's pushed back two stumbling steps. She lands in a crouch, and tries a sweeping kick he jumps, reaching for a pistol that's magclamped to his leg.

  
“Are you going to shoot me, bro? Fucking traitor!” she grins nastily under her helmet, and he flinches.

  
She takes that chance to tackle him again, and this time he goes down, hard.

  
“You haven't been the same since you got that thing,” she says, and North growls, bucking under her, “Did you replace me? I guess it's a much easier sibling, right? No inconvenient anger problem or need to compete.”

  
“South, that's not what this is about-”

  
“It's not about your precious A.I.? Nice fucking try, North, but the Director already briefed us. I know that you won't give up Theta without a fight. Well, fucking fine- I'll fight you. But I'm better. I'll win. I'll win, and then I'll get my own little helper bot, and then just fucking watch me!”

  
He grabs her under the joint of her knee plating, tosses her with a half-shout of pain, and rolls back to his feet.

  
South is faster, though, and is already up, fists raised and feet planted, looking for gaps in his stance- his left arm is weak. That throw was too much for his already strained elbow, and she can take advantage of that.

  
Around them, klaxons are blaring, and a cloud of smoke blocks her view for a second. She takes the opportunity to dodge behind a crate, and when it clears, North is gone too.  
“I should have known. Snipers don't actually fight, do they? Just hide, and pick off their enemies like cowards!” She shouts, and dives behind another stack of boxes.

  
“You're not my enemy!” North calls back, from somewhere nearby. East.

  
South sets her trackers.

  
“Well, I'm yours!”

  
“South, please, just hear me out. This is stupid!”

  
There's a three box cluster of stacked crates, just big enough for someone to lie on top of, and she crouches, using every tip she's gleaned from watching Wyoming and Florida to sneak through the wreckage of her fight with Texas.

  
“South, I'm serious, just listen for a minute- think about this. You're an elite soldier. You've stacked up over a hundred successful drops, and a hundred successful infiltrations, both alien and insurrectionist. You're a better fighter than me, just hot headed, and you should have got the implant before me!”

  
It does feel good to hear him say that. Even if he's just stalling for time. The crates are only a few metres away now, and they're stacked in such a way that she could kick out the bottom one, causing the top two to tumble.

  
“So why didn't you?” North asks, “Seriously. North was behind Carolina, and that makes sense, but we've been tied for fourth and fifth the entire time, and somehow Washington got his before you? It doesn't make any sense!”

  
His voice cracks, and she hasn't heard that in a long time, but that doesn't stop her donkey kick from knocking the crates- and the sniper hiding on top of them- to the ground.  
Before he can rise to his feet, she's on him, a hard right dazing him long enough for her to kick his pistol out of his hand, and her knee to land heavily on the injured elbow, one arm across his jugular to pin him.

  
“I'm bringing you in, North. I'm bringing you in, and Carolina will handle Texas, and then- then we'll see who's number one.”

  
She grins as he lets out a pained noise, and she can feel cartilage shift under her knee.

  
“It'll be me.”

  
“No! No it won't! It'll never be you, don't you get it?”

  
“It's pretty simple math, North,” South says, “If you and North and Texas are off the board, it's me against Carolina, and without her A.I., we're more even than she'd like.”  
“That's not what gets you an A.I., South.” North says, as she lifts a fist, “they're never going to give you an A.I. They want us to fight. Us in particular! And you care so much about this, about having an A.I.- this is how they're going to make it happen.”

  
That makes her pause. North sighs in relief, and she sits back on her heels, straddling him.

  
“Take off your helmet.”

“What?”

“Take off your fucking helmet, North. If you don't want to fight, you won't mind, right?”

“I'll do it if you do it,” he hems, and South nods. That's a familiar phrase, one straight out of kindergarten, where it was on her to look after her shy brother. If South would try the swings, so would North. If South would try the next level of their reading challenge, so would North.

The air in the cargo bay is thin and cold and smells like discharged guns and rocket smoke, so she takes a deep breath, sick of the refreshed air from the armour systems.

North is pale under her, his hair all scruffed up by the helmet, and she sees a flicker of purple-red in his eyes.

“Turn off your robot,” she instructs, “I'm talking to my brother.”

“Theta isn't a robot,” he says, but he slowly lifts one hand, fingers spread to show he's unarmed, and pulls the chip from his neck, tucking it into a compartment in his neck guard.

“Now, explain,” she says, not moving from her perch on his hips. From this position, she could easily knock him unconscious, she's got the skills, and he's practically helpless.

It's a nice reminder. The board might say she's worse than her brother, but North is nothing next to her in the field.

“It's an experiment, all of it,” North says in a rush, “Texas got some files, I don't know where, but all of it is on purpose.”

“All of what?”

“Everything!” North says, and she sits back a little more, so he can prop himself up on his elbows. “The leaderboard is complete...complete crap!”

“Harsh words from you,” she says with a smile, but it quickly sours. “How?”

“You're better. You're a better agent, but they kept setting you up. The wrong missions, the wrong partners, the constant comparisons between us. And they set me up too.” He glares at some point past her shoulder, “constant praise- mostly around you. Easy missions, friendly partners, specialised intelligence. Every way they could stack things in my favour- they did it.”

“Well, I always knew I was better than you,” she says slowly.

“Even Theta.” His lip wrinkles, and his forehead tightens- it's not an easy subject, she can read it in his eyes, but she isn't going to make it easy on him.

“Go on.”

“Paired states for a pair, right? The Dakotas. The Virginias.” There was a pause as they remembered their fellow sibling team.

So many of them were gone now.

North blinked at her, and South nodded for him to go on, “So why is there only one Carolina?”

“So nice she got named twice,” South parrots back automatically. An old joke, from their first week in camp, when the single Carolina had been picked out as strange, compared to the paired Dakotas and Virginias.

“One Carolina, with two A.Is. And...two Dakotas.”

“With one A.I.” South finishes for him. “An experiment?”

“An experiment. Texas has proof, okay? I saw it myself. No matter how good you are, you're never going to get an A.I.”

“The counsellor said-”

“The counsellor who said I went rogue because of Theta?” North needles, and South stands up. She doesn't want to admit it, but it rings true.

God, she hates it when he's right. He's so fucking smug about it.

“They want us to fight each other.” She says slowly.

“They always want us to fight each other,” North reminds her, and she nods, offering him a hand up. “Remember Mrs. Vold?”

Second grade, specialised math, convinced that girls were better than boys at mathematics. At first, it had been refreshing, being picked out as better than her brother. But then, he got too quiet, stopped talking in class and refusing to even try and answer homework questions...

Well, South has never been a nice girl, and Mrs. Vold had a new car that looked delightful with BITCH carved into the hood.

“They keep trying,” she says, over dramatic, and shakes her head heavily. “Fucking idiots.”

“They really are,” North nods, taking her hand and letting her pull him to his feet. “I'm sorry.”

“You're a fucking idiot too,” South sniffs, picking up her helmet and resting it on her hip. “You're terrible at this sort of thing. Why didn't you come to me?”

“...You're kind of scary.”

“Yeah, and you're kind of unnecessarily tall.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were stating the completely irrelevant,” she says, and he flushes a little.

Her brother is an idiot.

But he is her idiot, and nobody gets to make them fight. Except the other one, if they're being really fucking annoying.

“You're a sniper, North. You're a good sniper, too. And a good look out, even. But you are not an infiltration and close quarter combat specialist. Stop trying to do my fucking job.”

“I screwed up, didn't I?” North says, and South nods. “I was just worried about you.”

“Don't beat yourself up too much.”

“Stop trying to do your job?” North asks, lips tilting into a smile.

“Yeah!” she elbows him, and then adds, “...And I fucked up too. It happens.”

“It happens pretty often, really.”

“So, if it's meant to be one A.I. Between the two Dakotas, does this mean I get to meet Theta properly?” She changes the subject with a faked cough, and he raises an eyebrow, letting her know that he noticed the clumsy switch.

“Like...put him in your enhancement slot?” North asks, and she nods.

“I'm a good agent, you admitted it. You trust me with your younger sibling?”

“No.” North says bluntly, and she bristles.

“Fuck yo-”

“Not because you're a good agent, South. You're my sister. And I trust you with my life. And Theta- Theta is like my little brother. I think, maybe, it's time for you to meet your other brother.”

The chip is warm, even through gloves, and all South can think is how easily she could break it. She could break it and then North would never be able to rely on another person. Just South and North against everyone else, again.

Just for a second.

Then, she passes it back to him, and pulls her hair up off her neck.

“Do the honours?”

North huffs out a half laugh, and then there's ice and fire rushing through her veins and she stumbles into her arms.

**“North? Is it over? Is she okay- You're not North.”**

“No, I'm not,” South bites out through a feeling like an ice pick behind her ear, and North smooths down her hair.

“Give it a moment, sis. Just a moment.”

**“A-are you okay?”**

Theta's voice is sweet and worried and all too familiar. He sounds like North back when he wouldn't eat anything that wasn't orange, and she had to eat all his greens for him.

This may have played a large part as to why it took so long for North to get that first growth spurt, she thinks distantly, and a soft, cooling wave rushes over her brain.

“Let give you a lift, sis,” North says, catching her in a fireman's carry. “It takes a moment, the first time.”

“I'm okay,” South says softly, to the kid in her head. “You're so small...”

 **“Oh no. This is just like Washington all over again.”** Theta says, sounding resigned, and South hiccups a laugh into North's pauldron. Theta is a tiny knot of worry and heart crippling trust wrapped in a bundle of North's second hand brain patterns, all tied up at the base of her neck, and it's true. She has another brother, now.

“Hey, North?”

“Yeah?”

“What are we gonna call him? I don't know of any third Dakotas.”

 **“Third Dakota?** ” Theta pops up above North's other shoulder, bouncing in place and peering around him to look at South.

“Kind of unimaginative, but I like it,” North says, nodding.

“We can call him Third. That sounds kind of like Theta,” South agrees. “North?”

“Yeah?”

“I've never had a little sibling before. You're going to have to show me the ropes, okay?”

“Uh..sure?”

“You're a pretty good one,” South murmurs, and the shoulder holding her up shakes a little, “I should learn from the best, right?”

“You'll be better than me in no time,” North says.

“Duh. But...I just need a little help to get started...”

 **“Is she meant to be like this?”** Theta asks North, as South drifts off.

“I was, when we first installed you. She'll sleep it off, and then removal and installation won't bother her at all.”

 **“Will I be removed and installed a lot?”** Theta frowns, **“I liked being just with you.”**

“You'll like South. She's my favourite sister.”

“I'm your only sister,” South slurs quietly.

“Still my favourite,” North says, patting the back of her thigh. “But you were always meant for both of us, Theta. One A.I., Two Dakotas.”

 **“Three Dakotas.”** Theta corrects him, after a second. **“South said I'm a Dakota too, now.** ”

“So you are,” North agrees, and South raises a fist in victory, which Theta mirrors.

“Oh god, I'm outnumbered now, aren't I?” North asks, smiling a little.

“Fear us,” South and Theta say in unison, and then break into giggles.

South smiles at her brothers, and remembers how to be part of a team.


End file.
